1. John Singleton, “Come back Bob — It was all in fun!,” Matilda, May 1985, pp. 14-15.
2. Padraic P. McGuinness, “Mountainous inquiry will uncover molehills,” The Weekend Australian, May 14-15, 1994, p. 2.
3. Padraic P. McGuinness, “Sorry story has a moral: wowserism breeds corruption,” The Australian, August 7, 1991, p. 11.

***
1.
John Singleton,
“Come back Bob — It was all in fun!,”
Matilda, May 1985, pp. 14-15.

I have just finished David Hickie’s excellent book The Prince and The Premier.

It is an excellent book in every respect except one: it misses the point.

One the other hand it is not meant to be a work of philosophy but rather a glimpse at what makes one of the world’s largest cities also one of the world’s most interesting places to live.

The book is based on a claimed 437 interviews with anonymous “deep throats” plus transcripts from every Royal Commission David could lay his hands on.

I reckon it’s fair if I put my bias straight down on the card table:

I met Bob Askin in 1974.

David Hickie reminds me that I worked with Askin both in the raising of campaign funds and in the creation of some TV commercials which others have described as memorable.

David also tells us that my TV commercials “did not have Liberal Party endorsement”.

I hope the rest of the 534 page expose is more accurate.

The commercials ran in NSW with Askin’s authorisation. In Queensland with Joh Bjelke Petersen’s and in Victoria with Sam Holt’s and each ran with the full knowledge and approval of the Liberal Party.

So let’s get this part straight.

I was introduced by then-Liberal MLC Clyde Packer.

The campaign I produced was seen and approved by Askin’s state secretary (and now federal MP) Jim Carlton and every commercial was seen and approved privately by the pretender to Gough’s throne, Billie Snedden.

It was decided only as a matter of “politics” that the ads should be separately authorised so that they could be destructive as the innocuous official campaign attempted to be constructive.

Only Tony Eggleton did not see the campaign and I think Tony would admit that back in 1974, he hadn’t realised the importance of TV at all.

It was just peripheral, although the party new all about it at every level.

But when the shit hit the fan, the Liberal party dived for cover like a bagfull of cats at a greyhound picnic.

Billie Snedden claimed no knowledge whatsoever and sold the dump to Askin only a day after congratulating me on the whole campaign. It was as weak as piss.

Obviously Billie had been advised it was the “wise” thing for him to do but if we are going to talk about honesty let’s talk about Billie’s lies and get them on the record.

On top of Billie playing Pontius Pilate, my old mate (from later on) and father of the year (make that of the decade) Don Chipp said he wouldn’t have authorised the ads himself and Askin told him to “keep his bib out of NSW” and that was that.

From that time on the commercials became part of the legend and the friendship I had with Bob Askin became one of a father and the son he had never had.

Bob quit politics and we shared regular luncheons where the wine and stories flowed as the afternoons became nights.

I loved the cynical old bastard. I saw the good, soft side of Bob Askin. I saw the tough side. I never saw a bent side if there was one.

But this is the real point of the book which I believe even David Hickie himself has overlooked.

What were these “crimes” which Hickie finds Askin, Norm Allan, Fred Hansen, Ray Kelly, Perce Galea and Sammy Lee etc, etc, guilty of either carrying on or allowing to be carried on?

As the book tells it: The heinous crimes of having a bet and a beer.

Now then if this be the case who is the real criminal? The law maker or the law breaker?

At the turn of the century Australia boasted the most economic growth and richest population in the world.

You could drink all day and night.

Two-up was regarded as about as insidious as Trivial Pursuit.

The local SP was like the corner store. Just there.

It was what Fred Hansen would call a “live and let live” society way back then in 1900.

Asian immigration was booming (Geoffrey Blainey would have rolled in his mother’s womb) and so was Australia.

But then the pubs which opened at 5am and closed at 3am where shut at 6pm.

Two-up became a major crime.

Gambling gave you leprosy.

The SP was a child-molester.

The girls who plied the world’s oldest and saddest trade were killers.

The same Australia that had boomed now busted and the bust gets worse and worse.

Neville Wran once said that when the majority of good people of a city or a country believe a law is wrong and flout it then that law should be changed.

The people in the 1950s, 60s and 70s were no different to those in 1850s, 60s, 70s. They wanted a drink, a bet and a good time and they weren’t about to let some dumb laws stand in their way.

There were those who supplied the demand they became criminals.

There were those who had to be paid off to let it all happen and they became corrupt.

Is that the shocking truth or just the inevitable way life is?

When the dogs piss on telegraph poles should we chop down the poles or plant trees?

And so there was and is now a society of irresistible temptation.

Although society has now changed a little. Ever so little.

You don’t need sly grog now because the pubs are open when you want them. And so are the bottle shops.

It’s OK to bet now as long as it’s with the TAB.

And it’s even OK to play baccarat as long as you’re in Hobart, Darwin or on the Gold Coast.

Can you please explain to your children the change in morals involved and mail me a copy? I would like to try to understand myself …

Imagine if Fred Nile and FOL came to run Australia, and undoubtedly Fred would like to give it a go one day.

What would Fred and his well-meaning followers make illegal; a criminal offence:

Adultery?

Masturbation?

Alcohol?

Tobacco?

Playboy, Penthouse and all sealed sections?

Abortion? (and I would agree with him for once)

Artificial forms of contraception?

Gambling in all forms?

Homosexuality?

“Unnatural” sexual behaviour of all kinds?

Nude swimming?

Sex before marriage?

All movies with “unhealthy” sexual or violent content?

D.H. Lawrence books (add to this list any author you enjoy and Fred doesn’t)

Add your own FOL “crimes” to this list and be fair dinkum too.

Now what about when the ecologists/conservationists/liberal groups run the government — what will be illegal; a criminal offence:

Eating meat?

Chopping down a tree?

Driving a car?

And on and on the inevitable stupidity goes.

So then who would be the criminal? You, that’s who.

Not that you would be alone. David Hickie would be sitting down right next to you.

And please leave a seat for me.

P.S. Shock and scandal.
Back in 1974 I raised $300,000 to $400,000 for the Liberal Party. A not-insignificant amount of this was in cash. Every cent was administered by Fred Miller. Every cent was spent. I ought to know. I ran the advertising agency that spent the money.

Me? When the campaign was over Bob Askin asked me what he could do for me in return and that’s how I became a member of the SCG. Stupid me. I could have had a knighthood for me and five of my mates.

***
2.
Padraic P. McGuinness,
“Mountainous inquiry will uncover molehills,”
The Weekend Australian, May 14-15, 1994, p. 2.

So we are going to have yet another gigantic inquiry into police corruption, this time in NSW, which will establish that, yes, police corruption does exist; and at the same time it will make the fortunes of a few more lawyers. The estimated cost of the NSW royal commission is $100 million. This is just the ballpark figure — it could well be even more. What will it achieve?

A good place to start would be to cast our minds back to the Fitzgerald inquiry in Queensland. How much did that achieve, how much did it discover, and how many people are in jail as a result? The answers are not much, not much and not many. Although there was plenty rotten in the State of Queensland, and still is, there were no cases of massive bribery and corruption unearthed. The worst offences any politician was alleged to have committed were relatively trivial rorting of expenses, with the exception of the bribery allegation against Joh Bjelke-Petersen, which was never pinned on him.

The conduct of that trial was not all that could be desired; but despite this it remains the fact that the former premier has been convicted of nothing.

In fact, when one goes back to look at the issues which led to the establishment of the Fitzgerald inquiry, it does not seem that there was ever much there. There was undoubtedly crime and police corruption connected to racing, drugs, sex and liquor. But what do a few brothels or a bit of after-hours drinking matter? There will always be police corruption whenever sin is prohibited or restricted.

There are larger issues related to the supposed connections between police, politicians and business (particularly developers). But not a great deal has emerged even in this respect — naturally, there are some scandals as there will always be when politicians control licences or zoning regulations.

But even in Queensland endemic corruption of the whole political system was not established by Fitzgerald, indeed nothing like it.

The fact that the chattering classes in Queensland cannot bear the inherent conservatism and provinciality of their State is tough luck for them; it is quite clear Wayne Goss understands the attitudes of Queenslanders far better than do the leftovers of 60s radicalism in the Labor Party.

It is of course foolish and conducive to police corruption to allow the social agenda of religious conservatives to determine the legality of prostitution, drugs, gambling and so on; it is conducive to political corruption to have crude development boosterism as the driving force of the State’s economy. But it is not the prerogative of self-appointed social reformers to impose change on the electorate willy-nilly.

In Sydney there is undoubtedly more to be discovered by way of corruption, crime, bribery and murder. That is what one would expect in the metropolitan capital city of Australia. There has in the past been massive police corruption. There has undoubtedly been a fair bit of political corruption also; again property development has a lot to do with the whole issue.

(It has to be remembered that the Victoria Street conflict in Sydney, which led to Juanita Nielsen’s murder and the terrorising by thugs of some other people was essentially a squabble over property use — the developers on the one hand, and selfish inner-city dwellers who were attached to their cheap bohemian neighbourhood on the other. Both sides had their own pockets at heart.)

Even the former Liberal premier, Bob Askin, who was undoubtedly corrupt was not a crook on a grand scale. Indeed, the worst thing I have ever heard about him was his admission once that when premier the bookies at the race course shaved the odds for him and for the Supreme Court judges. The latter is truly alarming; perhaps no lawyer who frequents the racecourse should ever be appointed to the bench.

But that is the nearest thing to systemic corruption that has ever emerged in NSW. The political system is not hopelessly corrupt, it is not the servant of the monied classes, and corruption is not rife in the bureaucracy.

About 10 years ago I had lunch with the Indian high commissioner who had just read David Hickie’s book about Askin and friends. He asked me whether it was all true. “Apart from some details, in general,” I said. “Oh,” he said, “Is that all?” He after all came from a country where there is real corruption on a massive scale.

And this is the point. There is far more endemic corruption in Britain, far more public corruption in the United States, far more intimate contact and exchange between the bureaucracy and business in Japan. India is, with all its faults, a great democracy. The overall policy directions and the political evolution of these countries are not just a matter of corruption. Writers like Gore Vidal in the US understand the co-existence of corruption and high principle in a way that the philosophical punters and dinner party chatterers of Australia never have.

So what will the NSW royal commission achieve? It will certainly flush out some cases of corruption which ICAC, a not very satisfactory body, has missed. It will rake over the coals of old scandals and unsolved crimes. It will provide acres of copy for those journalists who love to grub around in the Mean Streets of Sydney, as well as for pop crime writers for whom evidence gets in the way too much.

The police force in NSW which has been going through a process of reform, and which has undoubtedly improved in honesty and morale greatly over the last 10 years will be disrupted and its attention diverted from its primary tasks.

There will be a few important busts. After all, there is corruption and other crime in the NSW police force — how could it be otherwise, when we have a growing drug trade, encouraged by the prohibitionist mentality of the medical profession and the profitability of restricted supplies. If you want rampant theft and prostitution, the best way to achieve it is to make heroin and other drugs, hard and soft, illegal and impossible to regulate. And when you have such a river of gold flowing through the streets illegally, how are you going to stop some cops dipping into it? And some politicians, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats as well?

Although I have great respect for John Hatton, the Independent South Coast MP in the NSW Parliament who has been fighting corruption for nearly 20 years, he has made a mistake in allying himself to the Labor Party in this matter and forcing the royal commission. It will discover little or nothing of importance that is new. It will harm the process of political and police reform in NSW, by diverting attention from organisational and systemic matters and towards sensationalism. It will probably also blow up in the face of the Labor Party, which has a lot to hide.

It will even take the heat off Tony Lauer, the police commissioner, who has still to be brought properly to book for his arrogance towards and defiance of his political masters. That is a far more serious issue than a bit of low-level police corruption.

***
3.
Padraic P. McGuinness,
“Sorry story has a moral: wowserism breeds corruption,”
The Australian, August 7, 1991, p. 11.

It is difficult to feel any sorrow for Sir Terence Lewis (soon to be plain Mr Lewis again), the former Queensland police chief. A corrupt copper is a festering sore on the body politic whatever the circumstances; and when the head of the police force is corrupt, the whole democratic structure is under threat.

Nevertheless, there has been far more condemnation of the former Queensland premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and his ministers than is justified by the facts so far known. Much of the shock and horror expressed about Queensland under the Nationals is hypocritical or moralistic in the extreme. It has to be remembered that the critics of the former government have a political agenda which has little to do with any real corruption, but has its origins in the ’60s and ’70s. The characteristics of the Queensland government they hated most were its rough and intolerant treatment of marijuana users, demonstrators, political radicals and “alternative” life-styles, along with its conservative disapproval of sexual unorthodoxy or deviancy; and its treatment of Aborigines.

However, in developing the chorus of denunciation of the rotten state of Queensland, there has been a tendency to overlook the reality and instead indulge in just the same kind of puritanical wowserism that produces what corruption actually existed.

In the first place, it has to be remembered that in terms of fiscal responsibility and public financial management, Queensland under Bjelke-Petersen was probably the best-managed of all the States. Its accounting system was obscure, as those of all of the States used to be, but it has emerged that the claims of Sir Joh with respect to his State’s accounts were no less than the truth.

Then there is the question of ministerial corruption. It has to be said that most of the convictions so far recorded against ministers have been for trivial carelessness with respect to their use of public funds for personal entertainment expenses. The total amounts are not great, and most people in business would be astonished to have a such a thing counted an offence. I cannot count the number of times I have in the past told a staff member who has been away or working especially hard to take his or her spouse out to a good dinner at office expense. Perhaps there should be a rule that those commentators who wax shrillest in condemning such offences should have their own expenses claims subjected to public gaze — “use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?”

There remain a small number of instances where it seems that genuine corruption by politicians occurred — the letting of public contracts, for example. But it is the style of government, which however offensive is not necessarily evidence of corruption, that has upset commentators most of all. Really it was a matter of exclusion from influence of those who feel that they had a natural right to exercise it.

But of course there is undeniable evidence of widespread police corruption up to the very top of the force.

How could it have been otherwise?

It is a notorious fact that if a government imposes laws making crimes of victim-free activities, or simple immorality, those laws will be broken. Moreover, the police, who know perfectly well that there is no way in the world you can stamp out drinking, gambling and prostitution, will inevitably be drawn into allowing such activities to continue but in a form regulated by themselves. And just as governments levy taxes on smoking, drinking and whoring so will the police. For granting permission for breaches of the law in a regular basis, the police will demand bribes. Those paying those bribes will begin to look upon them as a kind of licence fee.

If prostitution is illegal, prostitutes and their clients will end up paying the police. They will not refrain from immoral activities. If drinking is subjected to ludicrous restrictions and early closing times, those who want to go on beyond official hours will pay the police to let them. If gambling is forbidden by law, or subjected to pettifogging restrictions, the same will occur. And, of course, if drugs (hard or soft) are illegal, there will be a thriving criminal industry surrounding their use.

In other words, the real culprits for police corruption in Queensland were those worthy members of the public and the government who thought they could stamp out vice. You can’t, ever. All you can do is drive it underground and create a criminal milieu in which it thrives.

Whether Wayne Goss and his Government realise all this is not entirely clear. Even if they do, there was immense political problems in taking action which would remove many of the incentives to police corruption. It would require an abandonment of censorious interference in other peoples’ lives and an acceptance of the fact that immorality, however much to be condemned, is not, and ought not to be, a crime.

Of course there are brothels in Brisbane — there always have been and there always will be. The only sensible thing in policy terms is to ensure that they are honestly run, clean and subject to health supervision. There is also a case for demanding a certain amount of discretion in the way they advertise and display their function. There is no earthly reason why women should not take off their clothes for paying clients — but there is good reason why this should not be advertised in an offensive and vulgar manner, just as gynaecological studies should not be displayed on news stands. But if you go into a red-light district you cannot properly complain about red lights and the activities which go on behind them.

This ought to be obvious. But it is clear that the critics of the former Queensland government often were just as puritanical as its supporters. Throughout much of the literature concerning police corruption there is a moralistic tone, as if what was wrong was that the police were allowing prostitution, gambling and after-hours drinking. It seemed that the critics were vying with the Sunday moralists in pretending that it was possible to prevent these things. The point, however, is that moralism, whether perfectly sincere or hypocritical, is the reason for most police corruption.

The first step towards cleaning up a police force is to remove victimless crimes from the statute books, and so also remove the opportunities for criminal profiteering from such crimes. But there will always be some degree of police corruption, just as there will always be some public corruption. The need is to remove built-in incentives to corruption by making decision making as transparent as possible. Very few police would become corrupt in a big way, or in serious matters, if they did not start with small acts of corruption, accepting a few bucks for turning a blind eye to what they see to be a trivial and harmless offence, or for permitting vice which they know they can never stop. In this way their moral sensibilities are deadened, and the climate of corruption festers.

But the big question concerning Queensland remains. How much political corruption existed, how much bribery of politicians and judges? Was most public business conducted in a miasma of dishonesty? Or is it just that the political style of Queensland under the Nationals so outraged the chattering classes that they could not bear to accept that differences of political belief and style are not necessarily evidence of corruption?